Follow us on social

Biden's ‘Last bang’: Allow long range missiles in Russia

Biden's ‘Last bang’: Allow long range missiles in Russia

If he wanted to handcuff Trump’s plan to end the war, this was the way to do it

Analysis | Europe

It was widely expected, including by the victors of the 2024 presidential election, that the Biden government would ramp up its efforts through the end of the year to make it as difficult and costly as possible for a new administration to pursue a different course on Ukraine.

U.S. officials recently described this initiative as “Trump-proofing” their approach, and the White House decision to reportedly greenlight Ukrainian ATACMS strikes within Russian territory shows just how far the Biden administration is willing to go to handcuff President-elect Donald Trump to its Ukraine policy.

The announcement was tempered by some hedging, with officials telling the Washington Post that the initial missile strikes will “focus on and around” Russia’s southeastern border region of Kursk, though they “could expand” in the future.

The decision was preceded by weeks of public insistence by White House spokesman John Kirby and others that ATACMS strikes inside Russia offer limited operational value and are constrained by insufficient stocks. This kind of hair splitting and drastic policy reversal is not atypical of the Biden administration’s approach, with similar stories playing out in recent years over U.S. provisions of Patriot missile systems and HIMARS missiles to Ukraine.

The military logic by which these bans are imposed and subsequently lifted was always dubious at best, even as the stakes, and escalatory risks, have steadily crept up.

The administration cited alleged deployments of North Korean troops in Kursk as a major reason for lifting the ban. The goal, apparently, is to deter Pyongyang from deepening its involvement in Ukraine. This is a puzzling rationale. That there are discrete North Korean brigades fighting in Kursk itself is hardly an established fact. But their participation is a non-factor in determining the overall outcome of the war.

Additionally, Ukraine's armed forces can ill afford to deplete their minuscule ATACMS stocks on smatterings of DPRK personnel as opposed to the critical Russian military infrastructure — air bases, command and control (C2) centers, logistics and supply targets, etc. — that they would have had to prioritize with or without the North Korean presence in Kursk.

Then there is the fact that, as acknowledged by U.S. officials, the Russians have had months to prepare for this decision by redeploying critical assets out of range of Ukrainian ATACMS and bolstering their local air defenses. These attacks are not just operationally fraught but strategically bankrupt, as an ATACMS used to prolong Ukraine's unsustainable control over a sliver of Russian territory is one less ATACMS to stem Russia's significant advances in the eastern Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.

The intelligence community previously assessed that ATACMS strikes inside the Russian interior carry serious risks, possibly inducing Putin to restore deterrence with a major retaliation against the West. Biden administration officials, in attempting to justify their volte-face, are now arguing these risks have “diminished over time.” Yet neither this war's core dynamics nor the underlying logic of Russia's red lines has changed from two weeks ago, except to the extent that Ukrainian front lines are collapsing at an accelerated pace.

The only appreciable difference, one that is surely not lost on either Moscow or Kyiv, is the looming transition to a Trump administration that is planning to pursue a negotiated settlement in Ukraine as one of its first foreign policy items.

This decision also raises the corollary danger of similar reversals by Britain, which could grant Ukraine permission to use long-range Storm Shadow missiles, as well as accompanying green lights from France and Germany. Whereas Russia may be inclined toward leniency when it comes to the U.S. because of the presidential transition and Washington's overriding importance in steering the war to a negotiated conclusion, these allowances do not figure into Russian thinking on Ukraine's European partners and the bar for Moscow's retaliation against them may therefore be lower.

The Kremlin is thus presented with a powerful incentive not to retaliate against NATO in ways that would jeopardize impending peace talks. Yet this needlessly escalatory step has put Russia and NATO one step closer to a direct confrontation — the window to avert catastrophic miscalculation is now that much narrower.

Not incidentally, it creates yet another unnecessary sticking point between the incoming administration and Kyiv in what was already a difficult pre-negotiation process. It is, in its strategic confusion and tactical myopia, the tragic last bang of a US Ukraine policy that habitually prioritized “doing something” in the short to medium term over articulating and pursuing a credible endgame.


File:ATACMSMay2006 (cropped).jpg - Wikimedia Commons
Analysis | Europe
Fort Bragg horrors expose dark underbelly of post-9/11 warfare
Top photo credit: Seth Harp book jacket (Viking press) US special operators/deviant art/creative commons

Fort Bragg horrors expose dark underbelly of post-9/11 warfare

Media

In 2020 and 2021, 109 U.S. soldiers died at Fort Bragg, the largest military base in the country and the central location for the key Special Operations Units in the American military.

Only four of them were on overseas deployments. The others died stateside, mostly of drug overdoses, violence, or suicide. The situation has hardly improved. It was recently revealed that another 51 soldiers died at Fort Bragg in 2023. According to U.S. government data, these represent more military fatalities than have occurred at the hands of enemy forces in any year since 2013.

keep readingShow less
Trump Netanyahu
Top image credit: President Donald Trump hosts a bilateral dinner for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Monday, July 7, 2025, in the Blue Room. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

The case for US Middle East retrenchment has never been clearer

Middle East

Is Israel becoming the new hegemon of the Middle East? The answer to this question is an important one.

Preventing the rise of a rival regional hegemon — a state with a preponderance of military and economic power — in Eurasia has long been a core goal of U.S. foreign policy. During the Cold War, Washington feared Soviet dominion over Europe. Today, U.S. policymakers worry that China’s increasingly capable military will crowd the United States out of Asia’s lucrative economic markets. The United States has also acted repeatedly to prevent close allies in Europe and Asia from becoming military competitors, using promises of U.S. military protection to keep them weak and dependent.

keep readingShow less
United Nations
Top image credit: lev radin / Shutterstock.com

Do we need a treaty on neutrality?

Global Crises

In an era of widespread use of economic sanctions, dual-use technology exports, and hybrid warfare, the boundary between peacetime and wartime has become increasingly blurry. Yet understandings of neutrality remain stuck in the time of trench warfare. An updated conception of neutrality, codified through an international treaty, is necessary for global security.

Neutrality in the 21st century is often whatever a country wants it to be. For some, such as the European neutrals like Switzerland and Ireland, it is compatible with non-U.N. sanctions (such as by the European Union) while for others it is not. Countries in the Global South are also more likely to take a case-by-case approach, such as choosing to not take a stance on a specific conflict and instead call for a peaceful resolution while others believe a moral position does not undermine neutrality.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.